The Making of a Great EPK

by Erin Anderson

In the arsenal of tools that artists have at their disposal, EPKs are pretty important. EPK stands for electronic press kit. Years ago, artists would mail physical press kits including paper print outs of bios, full copies of CDs, and full color photos or headshots. Thank goodness it’s no longer that time consuming or expensive to put your music and face in front of managers, agents, promoters, label execs and more. These days, an EPK is a one-page website link that incorporates content and information to help business people get a full picture of the artist, their music, their accomplishments, and their branding very quickly. You can check out an example below.

Here are my top 6 tips for making a great EPK:

1. Consider your audience.

   Your EPK shouldn’t be fan facing—it’s for business people. It’s a place for bragging on yourself, sharing stats that fans don’t care about, and sharing information that is important to the agents, managers, labels and promoters. The goal of your EPK should be to use this one page to give someone, in 30 seconds, an overview of who you are and what you have done. 

2. Bullet points are neat.

   We are all overwhelmed and inundated with information. If someone opens your EPK and sees lots of paragraphs, they will immediately close it. Don’t make them work to find information. Create sections on your EPK so folks can quickly sort through your career and understand what you have accomplished. Suggested sections for bullet points: press, career highlights, touring highlights, streaming/sales highlights, and sync licensing.

3. Get the good stuff above the fold.

   I would recommend using the entire width of the website so you can pack in a lot of things before anyone has to scroll. The name of the game here is: don’t make them work for it. Have a stunning image at the top, have your music embedded to stream right there. Put the most impressive press quotes or sales highlights high up on the page. Hit them with the good stuff! You should ultimately include your bio, but put those paragraphs of information towards the bottom of the page so that people intrigued by your images, branding, audio, and career highlights can read on if interested. 

4. Put your EPK unlinked on your website.

   Let your EPK live on your website, but don’t have it linked. This means, the general population cannot navigate to your EPK from your website, BUT business people that have been sent your EPK link can choose to peruse the rest of your website if they wish.  

5. Update your EPK often.

   Much like a resume, it is helpful to always have an updated EPK ready to go in case the need arises. Every time you get a new great review, release a new song or video, or hit a career milestone, make sure to update your EPK to reflect that!  

6. Do not lie or exaggerate.

   More often than you would believe, I am sent an EPK that has a gross exaggeration or straight up lie on it. If you played at 11am at a festival where Radiohead headlined at 11pm, you did not open for Radiohead. If your track has 22K streams on it, it does not have 30K. Do not round up, do not exaggerate. That just makes business people question what else that you have told them is smoke and mirrors! 

Okay. Now that you’ve got the lay of the land, here is what I suggest you include in your EPK! This is not an exhaustive list, so get creative with what you include. Just remember: the goal is to put your best foot forward and display who you are to business people quickly. 

What should be included in your EPK? 

• Photos — this is where your branding can shine. Use professional, on-brand photos. Use more than one.

• Embedded streaming music — use Soundcloud or Youtube, NOT Spotify because people without a Spotify subscription cannot listen to an embedded Spotify playlist. Make it easy for someone to listen to your music right there on the page and listen while they read more about you. 

• Embedded music videos — include both live performance videos and regular music videos if you have them. 

• Bullet point list of career highlights (can including touring, press, streams/sales, sync, awards, etc) 

  • However, if you have enough in one category, you could break this out into further more specific sections.

• Artist Bio

Olivia's Digital Tool Box: Featuring Airtable

By Jackie Minton

When trying to work in a disorganized space, I feel a bit like a fish out of water. Unsorted papers look like abandoned intentions taking up my desk and piano bench. Bring that disorganization into the kitchen and my anxiety can take root when it comes to simply looking for that matching Tupperware lid. If you’re anything like me, a clean workspace is a must. 

However, having a clean physical space isn’t the only key to peaceful and productive work these days. With working from home becoming the new normal, an organized area now includes the digital plane. Today, the Olivia team is going to share our secret weapon to making a few hours of elbow grease look like an incorporated production.

Photo by Robert Bye from Unslpash

Meet our friend, airtable.com.
Whether you’re looking for a system to organize your personal passwords or a sophisticated way to track project deadlines, Airtable can help make your organizational dreams come true. The best part about this trusty tool is that a free account comes with unlimited data bases to dream, build, and track your information.

Here are a few ideas of ways you can use this powerful tool to maximize your digital workflow!

Centralize Passwords

Get your personal information out of the notes on your phone and into a singular location you can reach from anywhere. Include links to your account’s website to have one place to click through. We use this to keep track of all of our artists’ info from PRO accounts to social media.

Log Contacts

Whether it’s from your last business lunch or the booking contacts for your upcoming show. Log contacts and tag them by company and event needs. 

Create a Business Calendar

Or 5! Airtable has a great ability to house different calendars with various sharing parameters, and the ability to overlap calendars in your personal view.  Make a calendar for your social media plan, your travel schedule, or your upcoming co-writes. 

Sort Your Work Spaces

No matter what business you are in, it’s likely that you have to wear a few different hats to make your job happen. In the music business, we know this best! Venue details, marketing operations, and even managing a blog ;) are all small parts of the big picture we paint every day we come into work.

What parts of your process need some digital additions to the cyber-office space you’re building? Don’t be afraid to dream big!

Photo by Nastuh Abootalebi from Unslplash

Disclaimer: Airtable did not approve nor pay us for this article, but they should have.